No more “sh–y deals” for Goldman, at least in emails

ABOVE:Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of The Goldman Sachs Group, testifies on Capitol Hill in April.

If you never thought finance guys could swear like sailors, you obviously haven’t been to a downtown Manhattan bar after the market close.

But Goldman Sachs is following fellow banking giants in formally banning profanity in emails following the whole “sh–y deal” debacle that erupted earlier this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported reported the ban today, making it probably the only time you’ll see ‘POS’ and ‘WTF’ printed on its hallowed pages.

This comes in the wake of a 2007 memo that surfaced in which Goldman’s Thomas Montag called a CDO deal they put together for what it was — “a sh–y deal.”

Then in April of this year, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), memorably hammered home his point using said off-color language in a congressional hearing.

So Goldman — and the rest of Wall Street — is trying to tone it down.

Yeah, they can still push “sh–y” deals, they just can’t call them that.

FROM THE WSJ:

The new edict–delivered verbally, of course–has left some employees wondering if the rule also applies to shorthand for expletives such as “WTF” or legitimate terms that sound similar to curses.

In the spirit of the times, there is no written directive specifying which curses now are officially cursed. But screening tools being used by the firm would detect common swear words and acronyms. (read more)

SWEARING ON C-SPAN: Sen. Carl Levin gets his point across in an April hearing.